Black-and-White Landscape Photography

As someone who is particularly interested in exploring landscape photography during this class, I was searching for something related to landscape photography that I could blog about.  I came across another blog on Outdoor Photographer that gives a creative perspective on landscape photography.  Photographer Jack Curran gives readers an insight into how to create interesting and beautiful black-and-white landscape shots.

Most people, like myself, probably do not really associate black-and-white photography with landscape photography.  It seems that in landscape photography, you are always trying to capture the vibrant colors of nature that the scene provides.  However, as Curran points out, black-and-white images can be just as powerful, if not more so, than color images in landscape photography.  In fact, some scenes that may appear somewhat boring in color can actually make amazing photographs when converted to black-and-white.  This is often the case in settings where there is not a lot of color range.

There are a few aspects of a landscape that suit black-and-white photography best.  Curran advises to look for scenes with a good mix of light and shadows to give a black-and-white photograph depth and visual appeal.  Additionally, a scene with lots of texture and good contrast gives the best effects when converted to black-and-white.

As Curran's photographs show, black-and-white photography gives landscapes a completely different and even other-worldly feel.  Since coming across this article, I am excited to pursue some black-and-white landscape photography as I continue to experiment and learn.

Link to Jack Curran's blog: https://www.outdoorphotographer.com/tips-techniques/nature-landscapes/think-feel-do/

Creativity in Digital Photography: Using Infrared

As someone who is completely new to photography in general, I am quickly realizing that the art is not nearly as simple as just snapping a photo, not by a long shot.  With its complexities, I am beginning to also see that the limits for creativity are infinite.  I came across an article on Outdoor Photographer that exemplifies this point perfectly.

In her blog, photographer Piper Mackay describes how she is using infrared photography to bring a whole new aspect to her art.  Rather than capturing light within the visible spectrum, Mackay experiments with using infrared light to give a certain unique quality to her photographs.  Obtaining such images requires either using an infrared filter to filter out the visible light or converting a standard camera to one that only shoots infrared through an internal filter exchange.  With raw IR images, colors that we normally see are completely transformed.  For example, what we normally see as green appears red while brown becomes blue and red appears white.  Mackay then uses these raw images and converts them to black and white, giving her photos a very dramatic look and style.  Using this technique makes her animal subjects stand out from the background.

Mackay's work is a reminder to me to not be afraid to experiment with my photography.  I am inspired to try a lot of different things as I try to become a little more experienced in the art of photography because the possibilities for taking and making unique and awesome photographs are vast.

Link to Piper Mackay's blog: https://www.outdoorphotographer.com/on-location/featured-stories/exploring-infrared-photography/